Sermon by Marilyn Zehr
Taking it Off Line?
October 28, 2012
Texts: Psalm 34:1-8, Colossians 1: 15-20
Okay, last week’s sermon, chock full as it was of information about trending technological changes and how they are shaping and changing us, probably came across a bit like an instruction manual for putting together Ikea furniture.
Who reads those instruction manuals anyway? Helpful maybe – but only if you manage to figure them out.
This week, with the living room furniture assembled, I would like you to sit down on this furniture and look at each other; or maybe not. We don’t really look at each other quite as often as we used to. I suspect that if we are a typical family in a living room, at least one person sitting on this living room furniture will have a laptop open. Another will be texting someone who is not present or at intervals we will hear the tweet or whistle or bell or of an incoming text. A third person may be sitting in the corner of this room at the desk top computer and for those who still have TV’s the baseball game or recent leadership debate might also be on.
If you are one of the persons in the room you might even receive a text on your mobile device from a family member who is already in this room with you or somewhere else in the house.
Unfortunately I can vouch from some experience that this isn’t quite as far-fetched as it might seem to those whose children are under the age of 2 or those who choose quite deliberately not to carry cell phones or in other ways participate in this emerging picture.
Now, I want you to imagine Jesus trying to connect with this family. Would the message be an email copied to each of them,
– subject line, “hello,”
– body of the text, “just thought I’d drop you a note because I haven’t heard from you in a while. How are you? I’m pretty much as busy as ever, but wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking of you.
Love always,
Jesus.”
Or a twitter message from Jesus Christ who “is wondering if you’ve thought of me lately” #tryingtoconnect
or at the edge of your facebook page – you know where the People You May Know category is – Jesus of Nazareth 1500 mutual friends Add friend?
Okay, a bit “cheesy” I know, but think about it. Isn’t Jesus’ comment, “I stand at the door and knock, a bit of an outmoded metaphor?”
Who just goes and knocks on anyone’s door these days without at least first texting a warning – “almost there,” or “be there in five.” I’d like this sermon to be our opportunity to think about this for a few minutes.
As I said in the conclusion to last week’s sermon, at a time where we are in many ways more connected than ever, the general longing of society for authentic community is deeper than ever.
Does our Christian message have something to say about how we connect with one another in authentic and meaningful ways as a community in light of all the myriad of ways that exist now for us to “connect?”
Colossians 1:15-20, known to be an ancient hymn of the 1st century church may have some clues for us as does several other parts of this letter.
I will share part of a poetic paraphrase of this text to help us better grasp its connection to our own culture. This remixing of an ancient hymn comes from Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat’s 2004 commentary on Colossians, entitled, Colossians Remixed.
They begin:
In an image-saturated world,
a world of ubiquitous corporate logos
permeating your consciousness
a world of dehydrated and captive imaginations
in which we are too numbed, satiated and co-opted
to be able to dream of life otherwise
a world in which the empire of global economic affluence
has achieved the monopoly of our imaginations
in this world
Christ is the image of the invisible God
in this world
driven by images with a vengeance
Christ is the image par excellence
the image above all other images
the image that is not a façade
the image that is not trying to sell you anything
the image that refuses to co-opt you
Christ is the image of the invisible God
the image of God
A flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
image of who God is
the image of God
a flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrow
image of who we are called to be image-bearers of this God
He is the source of a liberated imagination
a subversion of the empire
because it all starts with him
and it all ends with him
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space and cyber space
all things have been created in him and through him
he is their source, their purpose, their goal
In the face of a disconnected world
where home is a domain in cyberspace
where neighborhood is a chat room
where public space is a shopping mall
where information technology promises
a tuned-in, reconnected world
all things hold together in Christ
the creation is a deeply personal cosmos
all cohering and interconnected in Jesus
And this sovereignty takes on cultural flesh
And this coherence of things is socially embodied
in the church
against all odds
against most of the evidence
In a “show-me” culture where words alone don’t cut it
the church is
the flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
embodiment of this Christ
as a body politic
around a common meal
in alternative economic practices
in radical service to the most vulnerable
in refusal of the empire
in love of this creation
the church re-imagines the world
in the image of the invisible God
If as is apparent in this particular poetic version of this passage, the church is the flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows embodiment of this Christ, then we need to understand this Christ in order to understand the corporate body we have been called to be.
As we claim and understand it Christ is God with a body, love with skin on – and lived as a person named Jesus
Jesus – God with a body – was someone who knew what it was like to live in community.
Jesus lived and breathed, taught and healed and preached and got hungry and prayed in Nazareth, Galilee and Jerusalem. People knew he came from a little no account town called Nazareth. Lot’s of people knew who his parents were. Jesus lived in a small enough community that people actually knew who he was. He was not anonymous.
Second, Jesus was a body who knew intimacy, joy and love. He spent much of his time within a small circle of intimate friends he called disciples. He went boating with these women and men and occasionally they went fishing. Sometimes they’d have picnics with bread and fish. He went to weddings with them and enjoyed fine wine. He regularly dined with them. Jesus was a body who even knew the touch of woman’s hair on his feet. In the gospel of John from chapter 14 on he called this inner circle of disciples his friends.
Third Jesus was a body who knew he was taking risks when he took on this smaller circle of friends. He seemed to have known that some within this circle would hurt him, the kind of hurt that anyone who loves exposes oneself to when one risks loving others. Remember Peter’s denial and Judas’s betrayal?
Fourth, Jesus was a body who knew conflict. There were skirmishes within the intimate circle of friends. – James and John wanted special seats beside him when he came into his kingdom and it made the rest of the group jealous. And we know that his message of compassion as the fulfillment of the law met with significant resistance from some of the Jewish leaders of his time.
Fifth, Jesus was a body who was acquainted with grief. Remember the story of the death of his friend Lazarus. Jesus wept.
Sixth, Jesus was a body who knew the agony of difficult choices and their consequences when he refused to resist those who were so angry and afraid about the power of his message of love above all else
and the powerful nature of the community this would engender.
These people were so angry and afraid that they rejected his message completely. The risky nature of Jesus’ final choice not to avoid their fear and anger even led to his death as he chose to lay down his life in the face of these powers rather than attempt to defeat them through force.
And finally, Jesus was a body who was raised by the power of God and we his body the church are raised with him to be an alternative to the powerful forces that continue to resist and reject the demands of love rather than the demands of everything else that clamors for our allegiance.
So if we look in this mirror behind me – corporately – fundamentally we are called to be
a body like Jesus;
one that derives its fundamental identity from living in community.
As such we are called to be a body that knows intimacy, joy and love
and a body that knows risk, conflict, grief, resistance, rejection and even death
and ultimately a body that knows resurrection power.
And so the question becomes or remains – can we be this kind of body – online – through social media, email, text, twitter facebook etcetera?
As you might imagine the answer is complex and you may not agree with me on all points – but such is the nature of community – I welcome your debate on these matters, but I will begin.
Can we be this kind of body, “online?”
Let’s begin with facebook.
Does use of facebook require real relational risk?
Not if we take our “friendships” there lightly and when we can “unfriend” someone anytime we want. However, depending on what we share there are risks to facebook and other social media use. If you share too much and it is used against you for example as many youth are tragically discovering, the risks are huge. What about the lesser risks? What about the risk of having no one notice or “like” your post? Unlike face-to-face communication it is hard to know what the real response to your posting is. Social media is a medium that can be manipulated in ways face-to-face communication cannot. On the other hand – knowing that someone has enjoyed a concert, travelled, is living through a renovation, or wants to share something they’ve thought about or become aware of, can be a conversation starter the next time we meet, but I would say the core of the relationship exists when we meet, with our bodies present, not in cyberspace – but rather in real flesh and blood, here and now, in time and history, with joys and sorrows kind of way.
Moving on to email. Again it’s complex. Being a Christ-like body while using email is especially difficult when sensitive and conflictual topics are raised. “Yes,” conflict is part of community and part of relationship, and for precisely this reason, conflict needs to be dealt with in communal and relationship enhancing ways. Email that is primarily a conveyor of information, and can be used very well as a conveyor of information when you want to a lot of people to receive exactly the same information and you aren’t all in the same place, is not often a very good vehicle for relationship enhancement. Without body language and tone of voice, it is very difficult to convey what one really needs to or hopes to convey. Another problem with email is that statements written there can come across like position statements or propositions that we find out later in conversational exchange weren’t quite so non-negotiable. One might argue that when you are communicating with someone with whom you already have a solid relationship, someone who knows your “language,” it may be effective, but if there is a misunderstanding of your “language” and the way you are using it and the topic is sensitive – type written communication can really complicate things or heighten tensions.
You may have noticed that as pastor of this congregation I strongly encourage that whenever possible sensitive conversations and conflicts are taken “offline.”
And before I wrap up, a word to those of us with strong introverted aspects to our personalities. We love electronic communication and social media because, as one person put it recently, we can be surrounded by friends without being overwhelmingly surrounded by friends and don’t we also love being able to edit our prose – making sure we get it just right before we “post” or hit “send.” And yet there is simply no exchange for the commitment required by face-to-face interaction. You know – flesh and blood, here and now, in time and history, joys and sorrows, embodied communication.
And we as a church, all of you here today are making
a radically alternative choice in an increasingly virtual world where it is easier to cocoon in our homes especially on Sundays. You have chosen instead to be here in flesh and blood, here and now, in time and history with your joys and sorrows kind of way.
This is harder,
it is riskier
and it is worth it. This is what Jesus modeled for us.
God in body form did not arrive on earth virtually. Nor do I think Jesus would show up virtually today or text that he’s “almost here” or “will be here in five.” Rather, God came to us; God comes to us in the flesh. God is still more likely the stranger or friend who knocks on the door, or who actually walks through the door and still wonders what
embodied community,
this kind of community gathered here,
is all about.
Well, we can say, it’s about welcome, acceptance, support, intimacy and grace. It’s about conflict, and risk and rejection and again grace. And it is about embodying the resurrected body of Christ in the world so that his powerful message of love above all else can in fact be lived.
And this sovereignty takes on cultural flesh
And this coherence of things is socially embodied
in the church
against all odds
against most of the evidence
In a “show-me” culture where words alone don’t cut it
the church is
the flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
embodiment of this Christ.